It’s beginning to look like 2024 is going to be another huge year for Canadian Southern Rockers The Commoners, with the release of brand new single ‘The Way I Am’ and the announcement of the band’s latest full length studio album, ‘Restless’, scheduled for release on Friday June 21st, through Gypsy Soul Records.
It was only 2022 that The Commoners released their critically acclaimed sophomore album ‘Find A Better Way’, with the Roots-Rock quintet continue their dedicated musical journey to provide listeners with a hearty dose of Southern-style swagger accentuated with slide guitar, organ swell, and heartfelt vocals.
We caught up with lead vocalist Chris Medhurst to talk about the band’s song writing, as well as take a look back at 2023, with the band completing two UK tours, including a monumental run of shows opening for Samantha Fish & Jesse Dayton on their Death Wish Blues tour. Is Australia’s turn to welcome the band on the horizon? We sure hope so…
Chris: Well, good morning from Canada.
Sean: And a good evening at 9 o’clock from Perth in Western Australia.
Chris: Oh, wow. Crazy.
Sean: How have you been?
Chris: I’ve been doing good, man. How about you?
Sean: Yeah, good, good. It’s been a nice cruisy day today. Not too hot, so it’s been fine. Thirty-two degrees.
Chris: I am extremely jealous. It’s about minus fifteen where I am at right now.
Sean: Well, there’s a good excuse for you to get your suitcases packed and come down and visit us down here in Australia [laughs].
Chris: Oh, man. That would be a dream come true.
Sean: I’ve had this wonderful new single, ‘The Way I Am’ on repeat this evening.
Chris: Heck yeah, man. I’m glad. I hope you guys like it. We put a lot of effort.
Sean: Such a good single. It’s just got fantastic riffs. I love the harmonies in the chorus. It’s just got everything I love about this kind of wonderful southern rock music.
Chris: Yeah, we really wanted to try and put a few songs on this record that if you’re in the car driving while playing them, there might be a chance you’ll get a speeding ticket [laughs].
Sean: [laughs] Does it come with a free voucher that you can fill in and The Commoners will pay 50% of that fine?
Chris: Oh, no, I assume no liability [laughs].
Sean: I’ve watched the lyric video as well, which is just so much fun. Makes it so much easier to pick up those lyrics. It’s superbly put together.
Chris: Yeah, it was. I think it’s one of the only lyric videos we did, but I was really, really happy with the template and how it was used with that one, with getting to use a bunch of the different articles that were written about us and put them on the newspaper in the background. It was a cool concept. I like how it came together.
Sean: It’s pretty cool. Well, of course, the end of last year, September time, we had ‘Devil Teasing Me’, which is another great song, which is all leading up nicely to the exciting news of June 21st with the new album, ‘Restless’. You guys must be chomping at the bit to release that.
Chris: Oh, man, I can’t wait. I mean, obviously, there’s PR schedules and all that sort of stuff to trickle things out and build momentum on it beforehand. But I’m really excited to be able to release the whole record and for everybody to hear what we’ve been cooking up. We got back from the tour that actually you guys did a review for us with when we were playing Troy Redfern in the UK. And we pretty much maybe took a week or two to decompress when we got back and then got straight back in it and wrote the whole album. I want to say we did it in maybe about two, maybe three weeks, just getting together every day, just writing a ton of material and picking the best stuff that we came up with and putting it together. And what we want to be another cohesive album. The last album, we put a lot of emphasis on making sure it flowed. And, you know, we’re all big fans of vinyl. And I have a, well, I mean, I have a huge vinyl collection (Chris pans his camera round to show an enormous and extensive vinyl collection).
Sean: Oh, would you look at that.
Chris: So, I appreciate when you can put on an album and there’s like a real side A and a side B and it flows really well. You flip the record over and you feel like side B is a new beginning. So we tried to do that again with the way that we curated, where everything is going to be on this album and just with the songs that we chose. So that it could be like a full album. It’s a full listening experience for people that do enjoy listening to a record from beginning to end.
Sean: Wonderful. It was only 2022 that ‘Find a Better Way’ was released so it’s not really been that long between albums. It seems there is so much creativity flying around the band.
Chris: Oh, yeah, there always is. You know, everybody in the band is super creative. We’re all coming up with new ideas. I know I’ve written a ton of stuff even since we’ve put together the album that we’re releasing.
I know Ben does a lot of song writing. Adam does as well. Ross is always putting together really cool guitar stuff. You know, we live and breathe this stuff. So we just had a lot to share.
Sean: Fantastic. I’m always interested to know when you go in the studio to put the final tracks down, how many songs do you go in with? Is there a few extras that you’re tossing and turning between whether they’re going to make it or not?
Chris: So typically by the time we go into the studio, we have a pretty solid idea of which tracks are are going to make the album, you know, occasionally you’ll record something and when you put it all together, you have maybe one or two that just doesn’t quite fit and they occasionally will get the axe once we’re in the recording studio process. But we do a lot of the elimination process during the writing phase before we actually get into the studio.
So I think we’ll write anywhere from like, you know, fifteen to twenty songs and then narrow it down to the ten to twelve that end up on a record.
Sean: You did touch on the fact that it’s very much a collaborative effort. But as a songwriter, is it something you have to apply yourself to do or or can you be walking down the street and suddenly something pops in your head?
Chris: You know, it’s a little bit of both. You have to have, I think, the discipline in song writing to flex that muscle and be good at it by just doing it on a consistent basis. So there are many times that I’ll sit down with just the intention to write and then inspiration will typically come just from the process or, you know, something’s going on in your life. You see something on TV, you see something in the world around you, you hear another song that strikes you and you get some juice from that. And it makes you want to, you know, where’s my book? Where’s the guitar? I want to do something. So it’s a little bit of both, but you definitely have to have that discipline to go in there and just write for the sake of writing and flexing that muscle.
Sean: Well, you touched on the fact we reviewed the show in the UK and I think we were also at the Sam Fish & Jesse Dayton one as well, because you toured with them at the end of the year as well. The UK have certainly got a soft spot for you guys. They love the band over there and Peter Noble can’t wait to get you back.
Chris: Oh, man, we’ve had so much fun going to the UK, both the co-headline tour with Troy Redfern and getting to open up for Sam Fish and Jesse Dayton. Both those tours were just a phenomenal experience. We had the best time and I feel like we’ve been really lucky so far. Everybody that we’ve gotten to work with over in the UK has been super kind to us, really accommodating, you know, Troy Redfern and and the guys he was playing with, you know, Kira and Finn were both awesome. And, you know, Finn even helped us out sourcing gear for the newest tour we just did with Sam Fish. By the way Sam Fish, Jesse Dayton and their whole camp were really good to us too. We had a great time. They gave us a decent opening slot and it’s just been a really positive experience overall. Honestly, I can’t complain.
Sean: It’s fantastic when you make those friends across the world. It just makes life so much easier, doesn’t it?
Chris: Yeah, it definitely does, especially, you know, coming from Canada, we’re getting on the plane, we show up with like eight to ten suitcases, merch and all that stuff. You should see the looks we get from Air Canada when we stroll into Pearson Airport. They are not fans of the Commoners [laughs].
Sean: Well, we’ve been blessed with some fantastic bands hitting this wonderful southern roots rock sound that’s just grabbed audiences around the world. I mean, bands like The Commoners, The Damn Truth, Dirty Honey, obviously, Robert Jon & The Wreck have all delved in that 70s blues southern rock sound and made it so current and also making it very much your own, proving there is a real global l love for this music.
Chris: And what I really appreciate, especially with the bands that you just listed, is they are all really authentic. I feel like everybody is really doing it because they love doing it and they have a passion for that music. And I bet you if I could get us all in a room talking together, we’d have a lot of a lot of similar musical tastes to talk about and influences and possibly some similar stories growing up, getting to listen to a lot of the same records. And it’s it’s nice to see that there are listeners out there that still appreciate just that authentic love for music and people creating stuff because they love doing it and they have something to share with the audience. So, you know, I love bands like The Damn Truth and Robert Jon & The Wreck. They’ve got some great songs and they put on excellent live performances. I’ve seen a lot of their live performances on YouTube, etc. So it’s nice to see that that good old rock and roll, Southern rock roots, rock soul, all that sort of stuff, it’s still alive and strong out there. And there’s still people who are really doing it from a real place.
Sean: And you know what else is nice? The age group in the audience is so diverse. You’ve got the oldies who go, who remember hearing bands back in the seventies and sixties. And then you got the kids coming out and, you know, they’re rocking your stuff.
Chris: Absolutely. Yeah, it’s it’s it’s cool. I think, you know, that just good music that comes from an authentic place, it transcends all of the age demographics, all that stuff. You know, good music is just good music. And it’s super humbling that there’s people in other countries that enjoy what we’re doing enough that we can go over the ocean and play to big crowds. Yeah, it’s amazing. Like, I mean, that I’m talking to you right now in Australia, it’s surreal.
Sean: Well, obviously, 2024 will be a massive year for the band again with the album release scheduled for June. Obviously, there’s going to be a tour in line with that? I’m sure back to the UK again at all this year.
Chris: There’s definitely plans to be going to the UK. We’ve got a few different festival shows lined up. Nothing is one hundred percent solid yet. You know, when you’re doing this kind of thing, there’s always so much on the table that you’ve got to kind of compartmentalize. So, I know we have big tour plans for all of 2024 and I know they’re in the works. I don’t have specifics yet. I’m just kind of, I’m sort of like, you tell me. [laughs] You tell me to jump and I’ll ask how high.
Sean: Well, I know a certain Fish and Dayton are coming out to Australia this year. There would be a lovely opening slot for you [laughs].
Chris: Oh, that would be a blessing. I’d love to play with them. They were good fun. And you know what? Getting to to watch their performance after ours every night, I felt like I was getting a master class in putting together a live show. They really curate a fantastic live show. You know, it has lots of special moments in it. It flows super well. There’s lots of crowd engagement. They’ve they’ve got it down to a science and they kick ass at it every single night. It was a it was a treat to watch.
Sean: It was a fantastic album ‘Death Wish Blues’. We had Sam here last year on her own, doing our own show earlier in April time, I think. Just incredible. The first time I’d seen her too and she blew me away. One of my top five gigs of 2023.
Chris: What a singer. She’s got like an amazing voice and amazing control over and a phenomenal guitar player and just an incredible performer in general. It’s great to watch her play. You do really learn a lot with how she engages with the crowd. It’s difficult when you go up there and you’re in front of a thousand plus people not to just give it 150 percent right from the start. But if you do that, you can kind of overblow yourself and give too much all at once and the pacing and the way that she puts together a show and the amount of reserve she has when she’s singing, like I said, just having control. It’s something to watch and admire for sure.
Sean: Well, just taking you back to the very beginning with you as as a youngster in Toronto, Canada, what was the what was it like for you there in the music scene growing up?
Chris: You know, I had my very first show on a patio in a small beach town in Ontario, a place called Sobble Beach. I played at a café that was owned by people that I’m still friends with today. I was about 14, I think, when I went to an open mic night and I just went up and ended up playing for probably over an hour and met people that I still play with and hang out with to this day. So, you know, in Ontario and in Canada as as a whole, the music industry is tough because we’re such a large country with a small population and you get these little pockets of population density with a lot of nothing in between. So it’s hard to do things like touring in Canada. But, you know, I was a solo acoustic musician playing all sorts of different genres for years and years, just sort of figuring out who I was writing music. I was a solo artist, you know, almost being the jukebox for people at their night out to the bar, at the patio, that sort of thing, you know, playing two, three hour shows for tips, all that sort of thing when I was like 14, 15, 16. And I actually won a performing competition, which is how I met Ross, the guitar player and the person who produces our band. I won some recording time with him and we’ve been friends ever since. And that’s how I sort of met him and then met Ben through him and met Adam through him and we sort of formed this project. So it’s crazy looking back at it from starting at a patio on 14, you know, solo acoustic singer songwriter and just how long it’s been and where it’s progressed to. It’s a wild, wild journey to look back on for sure.
Sean: And there’s plenty years ahead to keep going forward. And then looking further back to when it all started.
Chris: Oh, absolutely. You know, I think sometimes people go into endeavours like this with, per se, a five year plan, which is a good thing to have. But you’ve got to really be doing this sort of thing because you love doing it because it’s hard. There’s lots of hard aspects of touring. There’s lots of sacrifices to be made, time spent away from family, money being spent. All of that sort of stuff. And, you know, I think you have kind of got to be in it.
Like I said, it’s nice to have that five year plan, but I don’t ever have an intention of stopping at any point. You know, this is who I am. This is what I love to do. And I do it because it’s what I love to do.
Sean: And you do it so well.
Chris: And it’s thanks, man.
Sean: We don’t want you to stop yet.
Chris: I’ll stop when somebody puts me in the ground [laughs].
Sean: I was reading that some of your influences are bands like The Black Crowes and the Allman Brothers. Is that very much throughout the band or is there a lot of different influences that come in from all the guys?
Chris: So those are all pretty much our shared interests, for sure. And we’ve also got a lot of eclectic music listening tastes as individuals as well. Like I know for me as a singer, some of my favorite singers are Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, Billie Holiday – A lot of singers from that era really capture the essence of what I love in a singer, which is being able to emote and have a lot of control over your voice when you’re performing to really accurately depict the emotions that you’re trying to portray. So I listen to a lot of different music. And then when I look at things from a song writing perspective, you know, I love artists like James Taylor, the Allman Brothers, The Beatles, all sorts of different influences that I think you can take things from and then apply them to your own genre, your own sort of direction, you know?
Sean: Is there a guilty pleasure there that you can let us into? Just one guilty pleasure band? Something that our readers will go, “Really?”
Chris: [laughs] Guilty pleasure? You know what? That’s a tough one. Let me think. Well, I’m a 90s kid, so I going into my teens in the early 2000s and there was a lot of that punk, pop, punk, emo music stuff going on. So, you know, there’s definitely a few bands that I listen to, guilty pleasures back in the day, bands like A.I., My Chemical Romance, that sort of thing, when I was like 12 or 13. It’s still a good time. It’s still fun music. It’s not what I do. But, you know, I think across all genres, there’s things that people do really well that you can sort of absorb and then project into your own music.
Sean: Yeah, fantastic. I just want to finish off with a couple of random ones. My restaurant question, if you could invite three musicians dead or alive to join you for a bit of dinner, who would you have sat with you for the evening?
Chris: Oh, wow. Three musicians. That’s oh, that’s a tough one. Well, Sam Cooke is going to have to be number one because he’s my favourite singer of all time. He’s, I think, probably one of the best singers of all time. I listen to him super often. Who else? [laughs] It’s a tough one. I think Scott Wayland would be very interesting. Another singer that I really love. And then probably a personal favourite of mine would be Chris Cornell.
Sean: Yeah, wonderful. Great table. There is a band here in Australia that’s doing the Sam Cooke kind of vibe really well. That’s The Teskey Brothers?
Chris: Oh Yeah?
Sean: Yeah. I just caught them live this week. They were here in Perth and they’re just incredible. The sound they’ve got is so authentic and again they’re so genuine. And like you say, you can just see that they love what they’re doing.
Chris: That’s cool man. And if you haven’t checked them out yet, you should check out St. Paul & The Broken Bones. They do some really, really cool sort of Motown soul inspired music. They’ve got a great tiny desk session that you should check out. That guy’s got an amazing voice.
Sean: I’ll add that to my little list and have a check it out the weekend. You showed me your huge collection of vinyl there but what was the last album you listened to?
Chris: That’s actually right in front of me right now. And it is Fleet Foxes, ‘Helplessness Blues’. I didn’t have that on today because it’s about 8 a.m., but I was listening to it last night. I think we have a huge time gap between the two of us. But yeah, that’s that’s another one of my my favourite bands. And it’s very different from what we do. The Fleet Foxes. Excellent song writing. Great storytelling. Phenomenal harmonies. I absolutely love that band and ‘Helplessness Blues’ is one of my favourite records.
Sean: I’ll check that one out as well. I’ll put that on my list. I’ve got a lot of listening to do at the weekend [laughs]. And the very final question, Chris, if you could be credited with writing any song ever written, what song would you pick?
Chris: ‘The End’ by the Beatles.
Sean: Nice. That’s not on my playlist, but it will be now.
Chris: Yeah. I mean, ‘Abbey Road’, specifically Side B, is one of my favourite pieces of music. I think it’s one of my favourite pieces of music written of all time. I listen to that album a lot and lyrically that the way they end, that really, really resonates with me.
Sean: Chris, thank you so, so much for your time, especially so early in the morning. I bet you haven’t even had a coffee yet [laughs].
Chris: Ah, I’ve got a spaghetti tumbler here. We’ve got to keep them in the nice insulated thermoses in Canada. Otherwise, that coffee is only hot for five minutes. Yeah.
Sean: Yeah. We’re the same here in Australia with our cold drinks. We have to keep everything insulated or it just melts. Chris, all the best with the new single. I absolutely love it. And if this is just a tiny marker of what the album is going to be then wow. I can’t wait to hear it.
Chris: Thank you, brother. That’s not even the most energetic track on the record. So I look forward to what you think about the rest.
Sean: I’ll be nagging Annie to get me an early copy so we can get a review up nice and early when it’s ready to come out. Chris it’s been a real pleasure to catch up and have this chat – thank you.
Chris: Right on, man. It’s been a pleasure. Thank you.
Sean: Hopefully we’ll get to see you in Australia eventually, if not sooner. And we wish you and the rest of the band all the best from 2024.
Chris: I’m a huge outdoorsman and I’m big into four by fours. So it’s kind of been a dream of mine to get down to Australia, do some four wheeling and play some music.
Sean: I’m sure we can arrange something. Cheers Chris.
Chris: Thanks, man. It’s been an absolute pleasure, brother.
